Establishing a global solution to solve the myriad of issues resulting from the disjointed organization of music metadata, copyright ownership and licensing remains one of the most arduous pain points to in the music industry.

“The energies and engines behind technological innovators and artists are very similar. Both groups of people are trying to push out their vision and understanding of the world through highly specific languages, be that music or code or both. The present challenge is to bridge the gap between the languages of art and business.”

Paul-René Albertini, CEO of Sushi Venture Partners & former Chairman and CEO of Warner Music International

Without metadata, the music industry would come to a standstill. This vital information is required in order to manage music files, allowing data to be properly created, stored, sorted and used in a wide range of applications. Truly, metadata is a centerpiece of the industry, uniting music creation, copyright, royalties, music discovery and technology.

For those of you following technology industry trends, it would not be surprising that many experts have been calling 2017 the “Year of Voice”. Along with VR and AI, voice recognition has the potential for highly meaningful long-term development. Instead of controlling everything via apps, we can now talk to virtual assistants to control everything from our computers to our cars, to our home.

Big data is becoming an increasingly important component of the music industry as the digital world continues to grow in popularity with consumers. However, although companies have accessed data since the beginning of the digital era, determining how to extract and utilize the most valuable insights remains a largely untapped endeavor.

As the music industry adopts new technological solutions, the tracking and distribution of song usage continue to pose significant challenges, with a lack of transparency and accuracy that can result in copyright owners missing out on royalty payments from various mediums.